Beware the writer who sets himself or herself up as the
voice of a nation. This includes nations of race, gender, sexual orientation,
elective affinity. . . The New Behalfism demands uplift, accentuates the
positive, offers stirring moral instruction. It abhors the tragic sense of
life. Seeing literature as inescapably political, it substitutes political
values for literary ones. It is the murderer of thought.
Sir Salman
Rushdie
